


Lost Toys

by cate-lynne (catelynne)



Category: Supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-03
Updated: 2015-05-03
Packaged: 2018-03-28 21:40:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3870706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catelynne/pseuds/cate-lynne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean gets Castiel a teddy bear, but it gets lost much to Cas’s dismay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost Toys

Castiel was having nightmares.  Dean could hear him from down the hall.  The bunker walls weren’t quite thick enough to hide the whimpers and other distressed sounds coming from the ex-angel.  It was torturous to listen to, but Dean didn’t know how to help Cas.  He lay in bed, staring at the ceiling and tried to block out his friend’s pain.  He lasted five minutes before he decided to do something about it.

He climbed out of bed and knelt on the floor.  He reached far under his bed, searching for a box.  His fingers came in contact with cool metal and he smiled to himself.  He knew he would need all of this someday.  He just didn’t know when.  Out of the dented and slightly rusty metal box he pulled a variety of items that he set aside.  He was looking for something in particular.  And there it was.

Sammy’s teddy bear.  He had carted that bear around the country for years before abandoning it.  Unknown to him, Dean had sneaked it from the trash can and put it away.  He had kept it for so long.  He had thought that someday…he would be giving it to Sam’s kids.  Or his.  But the person who needed it was neither, he was a fallen angel of the Lord in a trenchcoat.  Oh well, he shrugged.

As quietly as possible, Dean opened his bedroom door and snuck down the hall, careful not to wake Sam.  The kid needed his sleep.  He cracked open Castiel’s door and peeked inside.  It was dark, except for a single light that was emanating slightly from Castiel’s back.  Dean had noticed it a few days ago during movie night and asked Cas about it.  He had regretted it immediately when he saw the pained expression on his friend’s face.  He had explained to a cringing Dean and an interested Sam that they were the last remnants of his wings.  They were insubstantial and could no longer carry Cas, but their remains followed him around.  They got fainter and fainter with each night.

Dean padded slowly across the room, hoping Cas hadn’t left anything on his floor that could injure him.  He made it to the bed without incident, though, and sat next to the sleeping body of Castiel.  He looked so small and innocent in sleep.  It made Dean’s heart ache.

“Cas….Hey, Cas,” he whispered, lightly shaking his shoulder. “Cas, wake up.”

Castiel woke up with a jolt, looking around in terror.  When he saw Dean, he relaxed and lay back down.  He had a faint sheen of sweat across his face and neck, and his blue eyes were wide.  He was fighting to make his breathing steady.

“Dean.  What’s going on?”

“Well, you were having a nightmare or something.  I heard you and just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I apologize for waking you, Dean.”

“No, Cas-” Dean sighed in frustration.  “I’m not upset.  I just want you to feel safe here.  With me and Sammy.”

Castiel’s blue eyes bored into his green ones, making Dean shift uncomfortably.

“I do.”

It was so quiet, Dean almost didn’t hear him. “What?”

“I do feel safe, Dean,” Cas repeated.  “I know you wouldn’t let anything happen to me.”

Dean smiled at him and after a moment, Cas smiled back.

“Oh, hey, I brought you something to help you sleep.”

“Dean, I don’t think alcohol will-”

“Not alcohol,” Dean chuckled.  Cas really did know him, didn’t he? “No, it’s this.”

He held out the old bear to Castiel for inspection.  Cas took it cautiously and looked at it while Dean began to babble.

“It was Sammy’s.  And mine, I guess, too, before it was his but Sam had it longer.  He tried to get rid of it after a hunt where a ghost was using kids’ toys to kill, but I saved it.  I thought maybe his kids or mine or….well anyway, you can have him if you want-”

“Yes.”  Cas hugged the bear tightly, making Dean smile again.

“Alright well…Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Dean,” Castiel whispered from under his blankets where he curled up with his new friend.  “And thank you.”

…

In the morning, Castiel wandered into the kitchen with the arm of the teddy bear gripped tightly in his hand.  His other hand rubbed at the sleep in his eye before dropping so he could see Sam and Dean sitting at the table with their coffee, already looking for a new hunt.  Sam was typing carefully on his laptop while Dean scoured newspapers.  They looked up at the same time.  Dean took in the sight of Cas, dressed in jeans and a Metallica t-shirt that Dean had given him, clutching the stuffed animal and smiled.  His eyes met Castiel’s and Cas could see how much Dean liked seeing the bear with Cas.

“How did you sleep, Cas?” Dean asked, slight concern in his voice.  Castiel smiled at him reassuringly.

“Very well, Dean.  Thank you.”  Dean beamed at him.  Castiel felt a wave of affection for the man who got so much joy from being to help his loved ones, no matter how.  It was one of the things he loved best about him.

Neither Castiel nor Dean had taken any notice of Sam.  He was staring, eyes locked on the bear that Cas held close.  His eyes were wide and slightly afraid looking and his hands were clenched in fists on the table.  He cleared his throat, claiming the others’ attention.

“Is that…Cas, is that my teddy bear?” His voice sounded strangled.  Dean and Cas shared a look.

“Yes, Sam.  Dean gave it to me last night because I was having nightmares.”

“Ah,” Sam said and purposefully wiped the emotion off of his face and out of his voice.  He went back to the news article he had been reading.  He didn’t say another word.  Dean and Castiel looked at each other for a moment in confusion before Dean shrugged and Cas went looking for burritos.

…

A few days later, Cas was walking down the hall when he heard voices coming from Dean’s room.  He paused when he heard his name.

“Why did you give that bear to Cas?”

Castiel crept closer.  Usually, eavesdropping would be unthinkable to him, but…he had been spending a lot of time around Dean lately, afterall.

“Yeah, what about it?”

“Dean…I thought I threw that thing away.”

There was a shuffling sound.  “Yeah, you did.”

“Then how…?”

Dean sighed.  “Because when you turned your back, I fished the thing out of the trashcan and kept it.”

“Why?”

“Because it was important to you, Sammy.  You carried that thing everywhere until that ghost freaked you out, and I thought…”

“You thought what, Dean?”

“I thought, maybe…someday, your kids would have it.”

“My kids?  Dean, what are you talking about?”

“Look man, it doesn’t matter-”

“Dean.”

“Alright!  When we were little, I never realized how…stuck you get in the job.  I always thought that someday we would get out, go to school, be normal, you know?  You would grow up, find a girl, get married and have a family.  I’d be the cool uncle that your kids loved.  And…they would have the bear that you dragged across the country.”

“Dean…I-”

“Don’t, Sam.”

The conversation continued in lower tones that Castiel couldn’t make out.  He moved on, uncomfortable at having been privy to such a private moment between the brothers.  But when he got to his room, it made him see the little bear in a whole new light.

….

The next week, Dean walked into the library to find every single book on the ground and Castiel standing in the middle of the mess, looking like he was about to cry.

“Dude, what the hell?”

“I lost it, Dean.  I’m so sorry!” Cas wailed and then burst into tears.

“Damn right, you lost it,” Dean muttered to himself, then louder: “What did you lose, Cas?”

“The bear! I LOST the bear you gave me!”  He continued to cry, surrounded by piles of books.  Dean was uncomfortable.  He didn’t deal with tears very well and wasn’t sure how to comfort his friend.

“Cas…” he tried, but apparently Cas couldn’t hear him over the sound of his sobs. “CAS!”

Cas stopped crying for a second, staring at Dean, to gasp out, “P-Please don’t hate me!” before dissolving into a crying mess again.  Dean looked at him for a moment, shocked that Cas thought Dean could hate him.  It was ridiculous.  So he climbed over the piles of books and picked his way over to his friend.  Once he was standing in front of him, he put both his hands on his shoulders and waited until he looked up with teary eyes.

“I’m not mad, Cas.”

“Y-You’re not?” he sniffed.

“Nope.  And I could never hate you.”

At that, Castiel smiled and hugged Dean tight around the waist.  It took Dean a second to hug back, but when he put his arms around Castiel and felt the relief in his muscles that Dean wasn’t pushing him away, he smiled to himself and held Cas closer.

…

That night, Dean wandered the halls of the bunker.  He had smelled it earlier and it had been bothering him all day.  Smoke.  Something was burning, or at least had been burned.  He found his way down hallways he hadn’t explored yet, though he often saw Sam slipping down them when he thought no one was watching him.  He walked for several minutes in darkness before he found the source of the smell in a small room.  It was empty, except for a small dark shape in the middle of the floor.  It was the teddy bear.  Dean knelt carefully so he could get a closer look.  It was burnt beyond repair, with its plastic eyes melted across its face and the fur turned black.  Looking closer, he could see that there were scraps of what looked like burnt paper mixed with the ashes of the toy.  Picking through the mess, Dean found a scrap that had somehow escaped the flames.  He could recognize Sam’s handwriting.  But the tiny words on the scrap of paper made a wave of guilt, regret, and sorrow crash over him:

_“…the future we never had.”_

It was only a few words, part of a sentence that Dean would never get to read.  Still, they tore at his heart.  Dean sat in that room for hours, head bent, and trying so hard not to cry while he got lost in the fantasies of his youth.  Fantasies of a future where he and Sammy were happy and safe and so much more than they ever could be in this life.


End file.
